The Truly Great

Great cities are a rare find. History has but a handful and in the modern world, achieving Great status is just as difficult as maintaining it. Great cities must be artistic centers. Paris has the famous Opera House and the Louvre. They must be the center of trade and commerce. The Tokyo, Hong Kong and London stock exchanges control the world’s economy. Being a capitol city helps but does not guarantee Great status. Very few people would make a trip solely to visit Brasilia or Canberra instead of Rio de Janeiro or Sydney. Hosting an international event helps raise its global profile. Who paid attention to Seoul before they hosed the Olympic Games? Now it has an honor that few cities obtain.

Among all of the Great cities in the world, there is but one and only one that is Truly Great: New York. It has all the prerequisites, being the home to Picasso, Copland and John Steinbeck while performers flock to debut at Carnegie Hall or the MET. Its port is the nexus of commerce east of the Mississippi. It has hosted world fairs and is the permanent home of the UN while the New York Stock Exchange dwarfs the importance of all the other exchanges combined.

But there was one event that happened on a brisk February afternoon in Union Square that catapulted New York far above its peers to earn it the rank of Truly Great. It was a day when a crowd of people gathered nervously, some still in their pajamas. All came with armed with one weapon in common: a pillow. Yes, it was the day of the Great Pillowfight.

For an hour, pillows got tossed, swung, stabbed, parried, flung, jabbed, hurled, dodged, thrown and blocked. Every once and awhile a pillow would burst, sending a cloud of feathers up into the air that slowly dispersed through the neighborhood. From a distance they looked like flakes of snow, until they landed on a nice black fleece and you realized that the only way to remove it was with a lint roller.

One brave lady sat on the shoulders of a comrade that gave her an immense advantage in height. But that advantage was quickly subdued when she became the center of attention and all of those around began to attach her mercilessly. All she could do was but fend off the attack by fluffy objects. Her victory was short and in the end, her thoughts of conquest dashed, she joined the masses in their free-for-all.

During this entire time, four NYC policemen stood by and watched. They looked rather perturbed, as if they did not quite know how to handle the situation. I’m sure they were very well trained with their firearms, knives and nightsticks, but pillows are not included in standard policeman issue so they were unfortunately outclassed.

You may be saying to yourself at this point, “How silly! That never happened! You must be running out of ideas and have started inventing stories to write about!”

I will tell you this. Sometimes reality is the best imagination we will ever have.